1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games introduced the pattern of commercial operation

Name: Linting Zhu

Student number: 40293705

   Since the development of modern Olympic movement, the main expenses of the Olympic Games have to be paid by the finance of the host city and the country. The maintenance of the balance of the Olympic Games depends on personal donations and ticket income of the venue, which is far from enough.

  Before the 1980s, every Olympic Games brought a certain degree of debt to the host city, and the Olympic Games became a real loss goods at that time. Especially after the Montreal Olympics, few cities are willing to bid for the Olympics.

   At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, as the chairman of the U.S. Olympic Organizing Committee, Ueberroth boldly created the business operation mode of the Olympic Games, and the Olympic Games realized real profits for the first time in that year.  Peter Ueberroth brought the Olympic Games back from the brink of "decline" and turned the Olympic Games from losing money to competing for money.

  Time magazine named him the man of the year and commented that:"The first gold medal was born before the competition started, and Uberroth deserved it."

   At that time, few people in the United States knew the name of Ueberroth. It was not until the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games that Ueberroth really became famous in the world and his name was recorded in the Olympic history.

   There are some things he did for this Olympic Games:

 1. Olympic Broadcasting Rights and selling privileges

Since the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, there has been Olympic Broadcasting, but no one has ever thought about selling the broadcasting rights. After Ueberroth made a public bid to sell the rights to broadcast the Games in Los Angeles,.

At first, Uberroth's assistant offered him a reserve price of $150 million. He directly raised the price by $100 million, saying that it must be $250 million. The privilege proved to be worth the price. After six rounds of bidding, ABC won with $309 million. This brought him the first pot of gold.

 2. Attract sponsors to join in and create a sense of scarcity

Through extensive market research, Uberroth found that there are about 12000 enterprises around the world willing to sponsor the Olympic Games, but each is willing to contribute only a few thousand dollars. He didn't want to do the same thing. Instead, he took advantage of their competitive psychology and stipulated that the number of sponsors of the Olympic Games was limited to 30, and only one sponsor in each industry, and the minimum "admission fee" was $4 million.

In this way, the fund-raising is much higher than usual. General motors of the United States, Coca Cola and Fuji of Japan have become the first sponsors of the Olympic Games. Later, among the top Olympic partners developed from this prototype, these brands have become guests repeatedly. For this alone, he collected another $385 million. The total amount of sponsorship for the Moscow Olympics was only $9 million.

 3. Turn the torch transmission into a "money printing machine" to make money with feelings

After selling the broadcasting rights and recruiting sponsors, Uberroth turned his mind to the torch relay. He convinced Samaranch with an emphasis on non-commercial attitude and urged each torchbearer to donate 3000 US dollars to local charities for the construction of sports facilities, promotion of sports activities and cultivation of sports talents. The torch relay was a great success, and Americans were proud to be a torchbearer.

    At the same time, in order to reduce various expenses, uberros made full use of the existing facilities and tried not to build stadiums; he did not build the Olympic Village, but rented two university dormitories in California for athletes and officials. And Recruitment of volunteers to volunteer for the Congress

  With his talented business mind and operation means, Ueberroth made the Los Angeles Olympic Games a complete success.

   In the final settlement, the Olympic Games, which did not rely on the government for a cent, made 250 million dollars instead of being in debt. Uberroth himself made more than a billion dollars.

   This man, who was appointed in the face of danger, almost by his own strength, hosted the Olympic Games, which was full of money and eye-catching. The business operation mode he created has also been used in the later Olympic Games. It has changed the miserable situation that the Olympic Games only lose money but not make money. It has become an important turning point in the history of the Olympic Games.

  This practice of making full use of commercial means in the way of industrial and commercial enterprises not only enlightens many economically underdeveloped countries to host the Olympic Games, but also brings vitality to the development of the Olympic movement. Still, whenever you applaud or decry Ueberroth's methods, there is no denying that the Los Angeles Olympics changed the way the games were played. As Robert Barney, Stephen Wenn and Scott Martyn write in 《Selling the five Rings》, "The 1984 Olympic Games ushered in the formalization of relations between the world of business and the Modern Olympic Movement."( Robert Barney, et al. 2004)

Bibliography

Barney, R., Martyn, S. and Wenn, S., 2004. Selling The Five Rings. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.